Kissinger Has Departed the Building

Henry has left US.  For a man so influential in US politics, one would think there would be an effusion of eulogies.  But not.  It is very hard to ignore his prominent role in prolonging the Vietnam War, the killing of thousands of civilians in Cambodia and Laos, and the overthrow of an elected government in Chile.  According to a Pentagon report in 1973 Kissinger approved each of the 3,875 secret bombing raids of Cambodia in 169 and 70. [photo] 

He told CIA Director Helms in a phone call that, "We will not let Chile go down the drain", referring to the election of Marxist President Salvador Allende.  US covert operations led to the assignation of Chile's Commander in Chief Rene Schneider, and eventually to the assignation of President Allende in a coup. August Pinochet took power and killed hundreds of citizen in a repressive campaign of political violence conducted by the military and the security agency, DINA.  Kissinger also opposed the leftist rebels in Angola, aligning the US with the repressive dictator of Zaire, Mobutu Seese Seko, in that civil war. The rebels eventually won with help from Cuba.  But. the war lasted for years, killing perhaps half a million people. He was also on the wrong side of the black liberation of Rhodesia led by Robert Mugabe.  He also supported repressive regimes in Latin America.

Yes, he participated in the Paris peace process to finally end the Vietnam war, but at the cost of thousands

killed in the carpet bombing of the North. Yes, he facilitated the opening of diplomatic relations with China, but he did that while stepping on the bodies of millions. He won the Nobel Peace prize, but it is stained with blood. The Chilean government now wants to see a complete disclosure of what the Nixon administration did to bring about the tragic events in that country.  The reckoning for Henry has yet to come. [photo credit: Getty images]